Global Briefing

By Desa Philadelphia; Eric Roston

--Green War

What a long, strange trip it's been for Bjorn Lomborg. A Danish statistician and former Greenpeace member, he grew doubtful of eco-doomsaying and wrote an influential and controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, published last year in English. Lomborg challenges what he sees as some greens' "selective and misleading use of the scientific evidence." Air in most places is cleaner than in the past, he says, and a smaller proportion of people are starving. Global warming is real, he adds, but projections are inaccurate. His critics' angry retorts can be found on the website Anti-Lomborg.com Lost in the fray is Lomborg's muted tone and balance: "Things are better, but not necessarily good." This month Lomborg, 36, visits the U.S. as the director of Denmark's new Environmental Assessment Institute, a government watchdog group.

--By Eric Roston

Get Through J.F.K. in a Blink

A scan of the iris--the colored ring around the pupil of an eye--is the optic equivalent of a fingerprint. Each person's irises are unique, and there is a 1-in-100 million chance of falsely identifying someone using iris patterns. In February, groups of Muslim pilgrims traveling to Mecca were randomly selected to have their irises scanned--a measure the Saudi government hoped would deter terrorism. Last month National Geographic used the technology to identify Sharbat Gula as the green-eyed Afghan girl in one of the magazine's most famous cover photos. Now iris-identification technology is being used to speed frequent flyers through immigration lines. By the end of summer, 1,000 travelers enrolled in a Virgin Atlantic trial program will be able to navigate immigration at London's Heathrow, New York City's J.F.K. and Northern Virginia's Dulles airports just by peering into an iris scanner, which will identify them on the basis of file photos. Participants could be cleared for entry in a mere 30 seconds.

MOOD OF THE MARKET

The Ambient Orb may look like a crystal ball on acid, but it's really more of a giant mood ring--plugged straight into the fluctuations of the stock market or anything else you care to track. The orb can be wirelessly configured to track any individual stock, any market index or your personal portfolio. It glows in shades ranging from bright green (when stocks are doing extremely well) to yellow (things are quiet) to bright red (avoid open windows). But those are just the standard settings. The $299 orb, made by Ambient Devices, based in Cambridge, Mass., can alert you in colors you choose to any information that can be constantly updated online, from the water temperature in Maine to your mom's blood pressure. "People want information, but they don't want to invest a lot of time in getting it," says Ambient president David Rose. "This makes getting information a 'glanceable' thing."

Wanted: Complainers

Service-industry workers may be the public faces of their companies, but they often complain that they don't get heard by their bosses. So at Isle of Capri Casinos, which operates 14 gaming establishments in Mississippi, Nevada and four other states, employees are being encouraged to e-mail their concerns to top management using "Speak-Up" computer terminals located on the casino floors. "You hear some tough things," says president Jack Gallaway. "But 90% of the tough things are right, so we have to listen." Employees can send the messages anonymously or provide their names; it's dealer's choice. They are guaranteed a response within 48 hours. Along with the gripes, they have made cost-cutting suggestions and reported misconduct by fellow workers. And Gallaway credits the complaint system with a reduction in worker turnover, a perennial woe in many service industries.

--Hit 'em Where It Hurts

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, former U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor should be pleased. When Kantor served in the Clinton Administration and was involved in trade disputes with France, he imposed heavy import duties on products that were personally important to key French politicians and their constituents, most notably Roquefort cheese, produced in the Dordogne region. The tactic, Kantor says, "was productive." Fast-forward to the latest trade dispute between the U.S. and the European Union. In response to U.S. tariffs on steel imports, E.U. Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said last month that he would target products manufactured in swing states that President Bush may need in order to win re-election. Orange juice from Florida and Harley-Davidson motorcycles from Wisconsin are reportedly on the list. But Kantor, now a Washington lawyer, isn't flattered. The E.U. action, he says, "is hypocritical."

I'll Have the Fungusburger

Quorn, the most popular meat substitute in Europe, is little known in the U.S., but its manufacturer, Britain's Marlow Foods, wants to change that. Often formed into patties, Quorn is a low-fat alternative to chicken nuggets and beef burgers. But Marlow faces a marketing challenge in describing Quorn--a mycoprotein, or fungus that has been fermented. This fungus is in the same family as mushrooms though it sounds like a cousin to the stuff that causes athlete's foot. But last month the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington group sometimes dubbed the Food Police, asked the FDA and the E.U. to restrict Marlow from describing Quorn as mushroom-like. ("Not all fungi are mushrooms," the group intones.) Days before its complaint, however, CSPI's testers gave Quorn a "Best Bites" award. They acknowledged--we're not making this up--that it tastes like chicken.